For the ban on Xinjiang cotton, CCFGroup has clear timeline on this issue

It has posed impact on the industry in the second half year of 2020 and 2021. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) signed by US President Joe Biden back in Dec last year extended the products from cotton and tomato to all goods in Xinjiang. In 2022, foreign apparel brands have stricter requirement on cotton feedstock, so the influence of the ban on Xinjiang cotton continues to deepen. But this is not a sudden issue, and is not the root reason for the decline of cotton prices. When Biden signed the Act on Dec 23, 2021, it has no big impact on the futures market, mainly because the market was amid the positive sentiment, with obvious demand recovery, harvest-rush of ginners and inflation expectation. This year, the recovery after the epidemic sees no advantages, and Chinese demand is also weak. In May 2022, the contradiction of loose supply appears apparently, while international cotton prices hit new high since mid-Mar, leading to high price spread between international and Chinese cotton, above 5,000yuan/mt.